The invention relates to a cleaning device, in particular, for grilling appliances or the like.
Such devices are used for the individual cleaning of gratings encountered in particular in cooking or grilling appliances.
Cleaning such gratings proves to be problematic. After use, the grate bars are covered with food remains and burned fat which cannot be removed while the grate bars are still hot. But once they have cooled down, the fat has solidified and cannot or only with great effort be removed with simple wiping cloths.
It is well known to use hand brushes for the cleaning of such gratings. Such a cleaning brush is described, e. g., in DE-OS 28 44 832. Cleaning brushes clean only insufficiently, wear out fast and therefore have only a short life, beside being uneasy to handle.
It is also known from the prior art to use cleaning scrapers. Such a scraper is known from DE 23 05 353.0 U1. It comprises a handle and a scraping blade having on its front edge several recesses of various sizes. These recesses are sized in relation to many possible diameters of the grate bars. The cleaning with such a scraper is unsatisfactory and complex, since the respective recess of the cleaning scraper does not embrace the grate bars, but only provides two contact points with one of them. For the complete cleaning of the upper circumferential surface of the grill bars, the cleaning scraper must be turned around several times and used under constant changing of the setting angle, and must frequently be cleaned. The lower surfaces of the grate bars remain completely uncleaned.
From DE 84 01 758.9 U1 an improved cleaning scraper is known, designed as scissors and provided with free limbs having semicircular-shaped recesses facing each other. Two of such recesses form a round aperture for cleaning in the squeezed together position of the scissors. The scissors are provided with several recesses with different diameters and hence can fit to differently sized grate bars. This type of device also does not meet the requirements. It is applicable only to grate bars having the appropriate corresponding diameter. Their use is therefore rather limited. Moreover, the grate bars are only insufficiently cleaned since, in order to allow free movement, there has to be an annular void between the recesses of the scissors and the grate bars and dirt stays on the grate bars in a thickness corresponding to the annular void. These scissors are also difficult to handle, since a force must be applied by hand for shifting the scissors with lateral distance to the grate bars to be ceased. This is uneasy and leads to tilting the cleaning scissors.
If is the object of the present invention to develop a cleaning device with an adaptable cleaning edge, so designed as to at least partially embrace the grate bars, and to fit to all grate bar diameters, and which is easy to handle.
According to the invention, this object is achieved in that the cleaning device comprises a pair of tongs having two limbs,
said limbs being held in an opened position by means of a tension of their own, and being squeezable together into a working position by means of a force applied by hand,
said limbs comprising each, on their free ends, a holding element which is oriented in a transversal and inwardly directed manner, whereby
both holding elements can pass by one another,
when the tongs are in said opened position, a negative overlap exists between both holding elements, said overlap being larger than the diameter of a grate bar to be cleaned, and said free ends of both limbs having an outer distance which is smaller than the inner distance between two neighbouring grate bars,
when the tongs are in said working position, a positive overlap occurs between the holding elements, whereby
said cleaning device has, on its free ends, a cleaning element, said cleaning element being able to be at least partially wrapped around the grate bar to be cleaned.
The cleaning device of the present invention is characterized in an advantageous manner by a high cleaning efficiency. This efficiency is to be attributed to the fact that the cleaning element essentially wraps tightly around the grate bar and separates the dirt from the grate bar like a cutting tool, thus avoiding a transport of the dirt on the surface of the grate bar and hence a smearing of the dirt as it occurs with scrapers. Moreover, the squeezing force on the cleaning element can be increased by changing the force applied by hand and adjusted to different conditions so as to improve the quality of the cleaning. The cleaning device is virtually applicable to every grating even with different grate bar diameters. This feature increases in favorable manner the area of application of the cleaning device according to the invention. The handling of the device is extremely simple. Each grate bar can be cleaned on a single step without undue effort. Moreover, the cleaning device can be used in such a way that the separated dirt falls directly again into the grill fire.
In an advantageous development of the present invention, the cleaning element is a cleaning cable, in particular a cleaning cable designed as a multicore wire of the type used, e. g., as a steelwire rope for fishing predatory fish. Such a cleaning element is very hardwearing and flexible.
In a further advantageous development of the present invention the cleaning cable has an excess length, serving as a reserve cable attached at one of the two limbs and used as a supply for renewing the cleaning cable. Also, the cleaning device of the present invention can be easily combined with well-known and regularly used grill tongs.
In a further advantageous development of the present invention at least one of the holding elements is provided with a recess, said recess having a cleaning edge, so that, in a particularly simple manner, the dirt adhering to the grate bars is removable.
In a further advantageous development the cleaning edge of the recess of the holding element has a semicircular, a semi-elliptic, a curved or a polygonal form. Such a cleaning device can advantageously be used for grill bars of different diameters in a particularly simple manner.
Further advantageous developments of the present invention are described in the dependent claims.